By Rahul Choudhary · Founder, IndiaSchool AI Pvt Ltd
Ten days with no SPMT sittings, right in the run-up to the November exams. The pause itself is minor. What makes it worth ten minutes of your attention is a rule buried in ICAI's own SPMT FAQ: once you have booked a slot, you cannot move it, and you do not get the fee back.
ICAI's Examination Department issued the announcement on 24 August 2026. It is three sentences long, and these are the only dates in it.
| What | When |
|---|---|
| No SPMT tests conducted | 11 October 2026 to 20 October 2026 (both days included) |
| Slot booking resumes | 21 October 2026 onwards |
| Stated reason | Maintenance and upgradation of the SPMT portal software |
| Announcement dated | 24 August 2026, Examination Department, ICAI |
Note what the announcement does not say. It does not extend any deadline, it does not change eligibility for anyone, and it says nothing about slots already booked inside that window. It is a maintenance notice, not a concession.
SPMT is not a fixed-date exam like Foundation or Final. You book a seat yourself on ICAI's SPMT portal — you pick the city, the centre, the date and the time slot from whatever is available. That flexibility is the whole point of a "self-paced" module, and it is also why most students leave it late.
The catch is in question 7 of ICAI's SPMT FAQ, last updated 26 May 2026: once selected, the examination centre, date, time and paper cannot be changed under any circumstances, and the fee is non-refundable. There is no reschedule button and no partial refund. If you have booked something you cannot attend, the money and the sitting are both gone, and you rebook and pay again.
That rule is what turns a routine maintenance window into something worth planning for. Ten days are coming out of an already-crowded October calendar, booking reopens on 21 October, and everyone who was going to sit during the blackout will be competing for post-21-October seats at the same time. Seats are subject to availability at your chosen city and centre — so the students who lose out are the ones who assumed they could pick up a convenient slot on short notice.
It also lands in the final stretch before ICAI's November 2026 Final examinations. If you were counting on clearing a module in mid-October, that plan needs redrawing now, not in the first week of October.
Four things, in rough order of urgency.
Log in to the SPMT portal with your SSP credentials and look at your booked tests. The announcement does not spell out what happens to a booking that already sits between 11 and 20 October. If you are holding one, do not guess — write to the SPMT helpdesk at exam_spmt@onlineregistrationform.org or spmt_examhelpline@icai.in, or call the helpline on 022-62507739, and get the position in writing.
You cannot book an SPMT seat for a paper until you have completed that paper's prescribed e-learning hours on ICAI's Digital Learning Campus at lms.icai.org. SET A and SET B carry 40 hours each; SET C and SET D carry 20 hours each. Those hours are the real bottleneck, and no portal upgrade shortens them — get them done before booking reopens rather than during the scramble afterwards.
Nothing in the announcement stops tests happening up to 10 October. If your hours are done and you are ready, the early-October window is the least contested one you will see. Just be certain of the date before you pay, because of the no-change rule.
ICAI allows a student to book slots for more than one module simultaneously, on the same day or different days, provided the timings do not clash. The exception is within SET C and SET D: if you have completed the hours for two or more papers under the same set, you may book only one of them at a time, and once you pass any paper in that set you cannot sit another paper from it.
The Self-Paced Online Modules are the four papers the New Scheme of Education and Training added between Intermediate and membership. You register for them when you register for the Final Course — there is no separate registration fee — and you sit the tests through the SPMT portal whenever you are ready.
| Module | Paper | Learning hours |
|---|---|---|
| SET A | Corporate and Economic Laws — mandatory, 100 marks | 40 |
| SET B | Strategic Cost and Performance Management — mandatory, 100 marks | 40 |
| SET C | Elective — choose one of ten, including Risk Management, International Taxation, Forensic Accounting and Valuation. 100 marks | 20 |
| SET D | Multidisciplinary — choose one of four, including Psychology and Philosophy, and Entrepreneurship and Start-up Ecosystem. 100 marks | 20 |
Where SPMT sits in the wider qualification: CA Final guide. Note also that ICAI has an open review of the whole Scheme of Education and Training running, so the module structure described here is the current position rather than a permanent one.
The pause dates come from ICAI's Examination Department announcement "Important Announcement - Self-Paced Module Test" dated 24 August 2026, published on icai.org, and were cross-checked against reporting by CAclubindia and VSI Jaipur. The fee, pass mark, no-change rule, booking rules and admit-card process come from ICAI's own "FAQ for Self Paced Module Test (SPMT)", last updated 26 May 2026, hosted on icai-call-sahayata.icai.org; the module structure and learning hours come from ICAI's Self-Paced Online Modules FAQ on the same site. CA Grader is not affiliated with ICAI — the SPMT portal is the only authoritative source for what slots exist on any given day, and ICAI can revise any of this by circular, so verify on icai.org and spmt.icai.org before relying on it for a booking or an exam-day decision. We have deliberately not restated the transitional eligibility tables that determine which of the four modules you personally must clear: those are tied to when you were admitted to the Final examination, and your own status on the SSP portal is the only safe answer.
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